Tag Archives: star trek

Dearest Sharksploders, please help me get my Patreon over the $2000 hump. Comics is my full time job, but it doesn’t currently pay full time money. I’ve been doing a lot of freelance work lately (which distracts me from making comics) to make ends meet, and I’ve agreed to attend more conventions this year than I really feel comfortable with (which REALLY distracts me from making comics) out of financial fear. Every little bit helps and is QUITE appreciated.

Oh, Wesley, no… you didn’t read the comments, did you? Why would you do that to yourself? You’re a very smart boy. Perhaps the smartest. You’ve got a lot going for you in terms of getting to fly a spaceship, getting to make out with alien girls that sometimes turn into bear monsters and occasionally getting space-drunk with a man-shaped science robot. FOCUS on these aspects of your life, man! Don’t let the haters get you down. Go do a wicked science fair project that creates an artificial singularity or whatever. That sounds like a fun Saturday night, right? Much better than trolling the Internet for opinions that strangers have about you, and your sweaters and your haircut and how sassy you get when the grown up JUST WON’T LISTEN! You’re great, kid. You keep doing you and it will all work out. Maybe someday you’ll catch the attention of an inter dimensional child predator in a windowless space van who will leave a trail of space candy to guide you to his other pants of existence… other PLANES of existence.

Here’s (I believe) THE FINAL redrawn/recolored FANEURYSM comic. You can see the original here, and read the blog post I wrote back in April 2014 below.

The Star Trek: TNG episode “Chain Of Command Pt. 2″ is such a wonderful hour of television. Patrick Stewart just DESTROYS your preconceived notions about cheesy acting in Star Trek or in science fiction in general. He Shakespeares THE SHIT out of that final torture scene. Picard is a man physically and mentally broken, but his will triumphs in the face of unbearable pain and almost total, partial nudity. Cardassians, man. Fucking Cardassians.

Here’s a T-Shirt I made about how much people care about fictional depictions of long past interstellar conflicts.

Here’s another redrawn/recolored FANEURYSM comic. This was one of the first ones I ever did, one of my favorites and the one that probably the fewest people who aren’t me understand. You can see the original here, and read the blog post I wrote back in April 2014 below.

I wrote at least three different comics about “Darmok.” I am definitely making at least one of them, but I haven’t decided if I’m going to save it for later or just do it now. I also haven’t decided if I’m just going to give up HijiNKS ENSUE and FANEURYSM and just make Darmok comics every day until I’m dead. Decisions are tough. It feels like that one time… with Temba… and the arms or whatever. Metaphors are also tough.

As much as I love “Darmok,” I do take issue with it. Actually, I take a metric assload of issue with it. Let’s assume that at some point the Tamarians didn’t talk like stupid idiots. They HAD to have regular language at some point in order to pass down the stories that allow their metaphors to be relatable. So perhaps they gave up on coherent speech as a people at some point and the Head Tamarian In Charge said, “Guys, here me out. We all know about Darmok, and Temba, and Shaka and what they were all about and what not. How’s about when I finish THIS SENTENCE, we only speak in reference to our shared cultural stories from here on out starrrrrtiiiiiinnnnnng…. NOW?”

I’m sure it worked out great for maybe a day or two, and everyone felt super cool about their complicated new way of not really communicating very well, and how funny it was that they were super frustrating to every other species in the Galaxy, but then… THEN someone needed to find a way to say, “Hey, I think I dropped the remote behind the couch when I was vacuuming. Can you reach back there and check? I would, but you know how my back is.” Then it was just kill or be killed. I wouldn’t be surprised if Captain Dathon and his crew were the last six surviving Tamarians. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were only six of them left and they had JUST started talking this way maybe 6 weeks ago.

Of course it makes a hell of a lot more sense if you consider that maybe they only speak that way in adulthood, or in formal settings, or if they belong to a particular religion are political affiliation, or if they are high born or when they want to infuriate an uncharacteristically dense in this particular episode Starfleet Captain until they are eaten by an invisible monster in order to prove a point.

I’m at San Diego Comic-con RIGHT NOW at the Cyanide & Happiness booth (#1234)! Come say hi, buy and a print and get a sketch from me and the Explosm boys.

Here’s another resurrected and recolored and COMPLETELY redrawn FANEURYSM comic. As I explained here, there are a few FANEURYSM comics that I don’t want to allow to slip into the void of the Internet’s hazy memory, and that fit in nicely with the aesthetic of Sharkzpode. You can see the original, much smaller, and much more blue version HERE.

I showed this comic, as well as some behind the scenes aspects of the creative process to my Patreon Patrons earlier this week.

Wesley obviously wants Picard to be his dad. I always imagine the two of them in that scene from Boogie Nights with Heather Graham and Julianne Moore:

Wesley: “Captain?”
Picard: *comes up from doing a rail of coke off of a deactivated Data’s boner, “Yeah?”
Wesley: “I want you to be my dad. I’m going to ask you if you’re my dad and when I do, I want you to say yes.” *chops up a line with an isolinear optical chip
Picard: “Ok.”
Wesley: “Are YOU my dad?”
Picard: “Yes. YES!”
*both cry into a pile of cocaine while the ship is being overrun by Romulans

Sharksploders: Which fictional character would you like to have for a parent and why?